A healthy lifestyle is the message of Kaiser Permanente’s float entry for the 119th Rose Parade.

The theme, “Aloha Festival,” will be illustrated on a float measuring 55 feet long, 18 feet wide and up to 30 feet high, with four sculpted children dressed in traditional hula skirts and sarongs.

One child will be paddling a canoe, while the other children dance to and play Hawaiian music.

The Hawaiian theme was chosen to mark Kaiser’s 50th anniversary in Hawaii, said Calvin Naito, the HMO’s spokesman.

The float also features dolphins, sea turtles, shells and starfish on the ocean floor. Floral decoration includes white roses, orchids, irises, hydrangeas and other flowers.

Additionally, 22 dancers will perform traditional and modern hula dances on the float.

Naito said the health-care provider’s participation in its third consecutive Rose Parade provides the opportunity to promote a “healthy lifestyle theme,” as part of Kaiser’s “Thrive” campaign, which promotes physical, mental and spiritual balance to achieve total health.

Ten local Kaiser Permanente patients who have been diagnosed with health issues such as sickle cell, cystic fibrosis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and various cancers, will ride atop the float.

Pasadena resident Nicolas Strassle, 11, who was chosen as a rider, has cystic fibrosis.

The riders were nominated by their physicians and are examples of “extraordinary kids overcoming adversity,” Naito said.

Kaiser’s two previous float entries in the 2006 and 2007 parades, “The Magic of Good Health” and “A Thriving Imagination,” were awarded the Directors’ and President’s trophies, respectively.

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